1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to removing or lifting or drawing away, by air suction technique, small quantities of particulate, liquid, or molten matter and particularly to apparatus improvements in hand held, hand operated vacuum stroke cleaning devices. The present invention finds particularly useful application in the field of soldering, desoldering, and rewiring in electronic laboratories, maintenance shops, factories, or hobbyists' benches; and although, in the cause of clarity and brevity, much of the following discussion and description of examples of the invention are directed theretoward, it is expressly to be understood that the advantages of the invention are equally well manifest in other fields wherever and whenever substances are to be removed or cleaned from an object such, for further example, in medical or dental fields as in removal of foreign objects or unwanted substances from portions of the body including the eye, ear, nose, throat, or open wound or the like.
2. Background of the Invention
In the electrical arts as mentioned, it is often desired to desolder an electrical connection such as, for example, a wire wrapped terminal, a wire to circuit board terminal, the terminals of a surface mounted device such as an integrated circuit chip, or the like. The removal, from the connection, of the molten solder without dropping or spattering it onto other portions of the equipment is generally essential. Blowing or shaking the molten metal away is therefore not an acceptable practice; and, in combination with its high mass density, the high surface tension associated with the solder makes its removal particularly difficult. Furthermore, the problem is aggravated by the requirement that the solder be removed quickly and without application of cooling means before the mechanical connection such as a multi-terminal microcircuit chip-to-circuit board or a wire-wrapped terminal may be taken apart.
3. Description of Prior Art
Since 1963 the art of molten solder removal has been developed, in large measure by the present applicants, with the invention and extensive improvement of hand held, single stroke, spring driven piston desoldering tools having an air intake, or suction, nozzle at their front end for drawing in molten solder as the spring driven piston is triggered by the operator to fly back. The progression of such tools is exemplified by the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,114,026 issued Dec. 10, 1963, to William S. Fortune; 3,263,8889 issued Aug. 2, 1966, to William S. Fortune; 3,818,539 issued June 25, 1974, to William S. Fortune, and 4,765,229 issued Aug. 23, 1988, to William S. Fortune and Robert E. Dallons.
For a number of reasons these tools generally utilize a small, tubular plastic nozzle held removably by the front end of the body of the desoldering tool: the plastic is less likely to cause damage by impact upon delicate components; plastics such as Teflon are self lubricated such that molten solder and flux materials do not fuse with or otherwise stick to them; and such plastics are readily and inexpensively machine and supplied as replaceable, spare parts with choice of configuration with respect to nozzle length, inner diameter, and curvature. When such plastic materials are used, however, they are subject to wear and significant deterioration from the very hot and caustic environment in which the tip inherently operates. Accordingly, their replaceability is important economically. A particularly commercially significant such replaceable tip is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,204,299 issued May 27, 1980 to William S. Fortune.